In a recent conversation the American writer Walt Bismarck asked me to reflect on my essay “The Paglian Right.” The argument of this piece was that, in distinction to the queer and experimental cultural movements of recent decades, which have tended to focus on inclusion, safe-spaces, tolerance, and diversity – in short, “leveling down to the lowest common denominator” – it would also be totally possible to have queer and experimental spaces that embrace and accept human differences without trying to overcome them, and which are explicitly oriented towards the production of beauty and excellence.
Very insightful, thanks. Helps me square the circle of liking Warhol and Bowie but disliking modern "queer" culture and it's attack on children and authoritarian tendencies.. I have some simpatico thoughts here:
There's a nice interview with Bowie where he discusses how to be an artist is an absurd thing and it would be much better to work hard and provide for your family and stay away from it.
The commercial individualism of the last 60 years or so has a) turned artists, queers, weirdos into heroes for ordinary people and b) sold the idea that "everyone can be one of these weirdos".
Woke went really fundamentalist and tried to "queer ordinary space" to an extent that was cruel and even violent.
With this nightmare finally over (amongst the edgy 20 year olds woke is increasingly lame) the space is opening for weirdos to go back into the wilderness and cultivate the edge, and leave more conservatively oriented folk to do their thing.
Imo a big task is to convince the new gen of weirdos that the metropolitan digital marketing yuppies who fawn over Pride parades while being very sexually boring and artistically mediocre themselves are NOT their natural friends and allies.
"There is nothing to be learned from Music and Art - as Deleuze claims, authentic Art carries no information."
I liked your essay but am confused about this. You can learn all kinds of things about civilizations from their images, gestures and sounds in time. For example, Kenneth Clark made a series of programs called, appropriately, Civilization using only images to understand the beliefs, the gods, economy, the relation between men and women, and various classes and so forth.
Thanks again for your essay. I agree with the general tone but you lost me here.
Very insightful, thanks. Helps me square the circle of liking Warhol and Bowie but disliking modern "queer" culture and it's attack on children and authoritarian tendencies.. I have some simpatico thoughts here:
https://substack.com/@whispertrees/p-147372291
There's a nice interview with Bowie where he discusses how to be an artist is an absurd thing and it would be much better to work hard and provide for your family and stay away from it.
The commercial individualism of the last 60 years or so has a) turned artists, queers, weirdos into heroes for ordinary people and b) sold the idea that "everyone can be one of these weirdos".
Woke went really fundamentalist and tried to "queer ordinary space" to an extent that was cruel and even violent.
With this nightmare finally over (amongst the edgy 20 year olds woke is increasingly lame) the space is opening for weirdos to go back into the wilderness and cultivate the edge, and leave more conservatively oriented folk to do their thing.
Imo a big task is to convince the new gen of weirdos that the metropolitan digital marketing yuppies who fawn over Pride parades while being very sexually boring and artistically mediocre themselves are NOT their natural friends and allies.
Forgot the link
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t8CNhakfB7c
Wilderness weirdo here, but not gay, fash.
Thank you for this. Making queer queer again.
Beautiful! Qirja ftw :)
"There is nothing to be learned from Music and Art - as Deleuze claims, authentic Art carries no information."
I liked your essay but am confused about this. You can learn all kinds of things about civilizations from their images, gestures and sounds in time. For example, Kenneth Clark made a series of programs called, appropriately, Civilization using only images to understand the beliefs, the gods, economy, the relation between men and women, and various classes and so forth.
Thanks again for your essay. I agree with the general tone but you lost me here.